He was exceedingly happy in his home, but he did often wonder whether he would not run away to sea; of course, he was going to be a sailor, but it seemed so long to wait until he was thirteen or fourteen, and there was the sea all the time rolling in and out and inviting him to come.
Mrs.Cole warned Miss Jones of this taste of Jeremy's: "Never let him speak to a sailor, Miss Jones.

There are some horrible men in the town, and Jeremy simply is not to be trusted when sailors are concerned." Miss Jones, however, could not be always on her guard, and Fate is stronger than any governess...
Early in February there came one of those hints of spring that in Glebeshire more than in any other place in the world thrill and stir the heart.

Generally they give very little in actual reward and are followed by weeks of hail and sleet and wind, but for that reason alone their burning promise is beyond all other promises beguiling.

Jeremy got up one morning to feel that somewhere behind the thick wet mists of the early hours there was a blazing sun.

After breakfast, opening the window and leaning out, he could see the leaves of the garden still shining with their early glitter and the earth channelled into fissures and breaks, dark and hard under the silver-threaded frost; beneath the rind of the soil he could feel the pushing, heaving life struggling to answer the call of the sun above it.